JAPAN: Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, defied warnings and protests from across Asia and from within his own government to visit the Yasukuni shrine war memorial yesterday, the anniversary of Tokyo's second World War surrender.
The pilgrimage to the memorial, which commemorates Japan's convicted war leaders along with 2.5 million war dead, ends Mr Koizumi's controversial five-year premiership on a bitterly divisive note and worsens already frayed ties with China and South Korea, which both reacted furiously.
Seoul's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, said Mr Koizumi showed "total disrespect for the Korean government and people", adding that Koreans were "disappointed and angry".
Beijing said that as "the biggest victim of the war of aggression launched by Japanese militarists", China "strongly protested" the visit. "Prime minister Koizumi is challenging international justice and trampling human conscience."
However, Mr Koizumi rejected the criticism, saying he went "to remember and reflect on past wars and renew our resolve never to go to war again".
He said China and Korea were using the visits as a "diplomatic card". "We remain far apart but I have told them again and again, I do not go there to worship war criminals."
Later, at a ceremony to mark the end of the war, Mr Koizumi repeated Japan's boilerplate apology to its wartime victims, saying: "Our country caused huge damage and suffering to a number of countries, particularly people in Asia."
Hundreds of right-wing supporters waved rising-sun flags and banners saying "The Great East-Asia war was not a war of aggression" as Mr Koizumi entered the shrine early yesterday morning.
Nationalists have waited five years for him to fulfil a pledge to visit Yasukuni on the highly symbolic date of August 15th, which Japan calls "end of the war day".
Critics say that Yasukuni symbolises Japan's lack of contrition for its brutal war in Asia, which killed millions of Chinese, Korean and other civilians.
A museum yards from the shrine argues that the invasions of China and Korea were "defensive" and whitewashes some of imperial Japan's worst war crimes.
Recent polls show a majority of Japanese are against annual prime ministerial visits to the shrine, following the publication of a leaked memo suggesting that wartime monarch Emperor Hirohito stopped going in the 1970s after Yasukuni priests secretly enshrined 14 class-A war criminals.
The visits are also opposed by much of Japan's business community and by the leader of Mr Koizumi's coalition partner, Takenori Kanzaki of the New Komeito party, who called yesterday's trip "regrettable".
The pilgrimages play well, however, with Mr Koizumi's conservative base and will add to his political legacy one month before he steps down - as a maverick prepared to break the rules.
"More than anything there is political calculation behind this," said Koichi Nakano, professor of comparative politics at Tokyo's Sophia University.
"The visit endears Koizumi to conservatives in Japan. He uses this as an honourable exit and leaves power with an image among conservatives as a strong leader."
All eyes are now on Mr Koizumi's successor, most likely chief cabinet secretary Shinzo Abe, who secretly visited the shrine in April. Mr Abe refused to say yesterday whether he would go as prime minister, repeating earlier statements that "misunderstandings" with China and South Korea "need to be removed".
Seoul and Beijing however will be desperately hoping that visits to Yasukuni end with Mr Koizumi's retirement.
"Most of Asia had written off this Japanese prime minister a long time ago," said Prof Nakano. "Now we can only wait to see what comes next."
The house and office of a politician critical of Mr Koizumi's visit to the shrine burned down last night, police said. The fire broke out at the home and office of Koichi Kato in northern Japan.
An unidentified man was found on the premises with wounds to his abdomen. Police believe he set the fire and then tried to commit suicide.